Shale priority: waste water

Tuesday

Jan 29, 2013 at 12:01 AMJan 29, 2013 at 10:31 AM

As shale-gas development has accelerated in Ohio, state government has followed a sensible course of encouraging drilling and the economic boost it promises, while taking appropriate steps to protect the public from the costs and dangers - not all of which are yet fully understood - of a new kind of energy boom.

As shale-gas development has accelerated in Ohio, state government has followed a sensible course of encouraging drilling and the economic boost it promises, while taking appropriate steps to protect the public from the costs and dangers ó not all of which are yet fully understood ó of a new kind of energy boom.

Recent reports suggest the most-urgent question may be what to do with the liquid waste associated with horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

Pennsylvania, far ahead of Ohio in shale development, is sending so much fracking fluid to disposal wells in Ohio that a recent academic study suggests that Ohioís wells might not be able to take all of it, let alone any Ohio-generated waste.

Transporting the waste from drilling site to disposal well generates enormous heavy-truck traffic, with its typical problems. A different option being considered ó moving it along the Ohio River in barges ó raises a different set of concerns.

Ohio allows only two ways to dispose of it: Inject it into deep wells, or re-use it on another fracking job.

Encouraging new solutions should be a priority for state regulators.

Fracking waste comes in two waves: After millions of gallons of water, laced with sand and chemicals, are shot deep into the earth to break up the gas-and-oil-bearing shale layer, about 15 to 25 percent of that water comes back up.

After oil and gas production begins, wells also spew out a briny liquid, often tainted by metals, including radium, that occur naturally, deep in the earth. Conventional water-treatment methods havenít been able to remove the brine and metals.

The number of Ohio disposal wells, currently 179, should begin to grow, with applications pending for 30 more.

Ohio canít turn away other statesí fracking waste, because courts have declared the transport of such waste to be interstate commerce, protected by the U.S. Constitution.

Re-using the water shows some promise; Chesapeake Energy Corp., among the biggest players in Ohio, has developed a treatment-and-filtering system that allows it to put substantially less waste water into injection wells and instead save it to fracture the next shale well.

Beyond saving on storage, that has two other benefits: Wastewater doesnít have to be trucked as far, and re-using water means the driller wonít have to take as much from a nearby fresh-water source.

Critics of fracking raise warnings about waste water, depletion of ground water and ground or air contamination at well sites; their concerns should be heeded.

But any assessment of frackingís environmental risks and costs to communities should be weighed against the known costs of other energy sources in wide use. Coal extraction is in some cases leveling entire mountains and burying and poisoning the valley streams below. The environmental and health hazards of burning coal are well documented.

With nuclear energy, safely disposing of the toxic waste remains an unsolved problem after decades.

Much-cleaner (but still not perfect) energy sources, such as wind and solar, havenít yet proven adequate to replace conventional fuels.

For now, shale gas and oil are an attractive option. The stateís priority should be to encourage their safe development to the greatest extent possible.